


Tails

by triedunture



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: First Time, Gags, Light Bondage, M/M, Rimming, Wet & Messy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-20
Updated: 2013-08-20
Packaged: 2017-12-24 03:55:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/935014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triedunture/pseuds/triedunture
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris and Zach make a bet: whoever wins their wordplay game gets to be in control. Chris wins. Sort of.</p><p>Zach doesn't know what he'd expected from Chris Pine's Big Gay Night of Topping, but this wasn't it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tails

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BewareTheIdes15](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BewareTheIdes15/gifts).



In Los Angeles he's languid and sun-warm, feet kicked up on an overturned bucket, wet can of beer making circles on the denim of his thighs. "Well, that's just your prejudice showing," he says, and Zach squints at him over the end of his own can. Once he's finished swallowing, he can answer with the right amount of incredulity. 

"Jesus, don't be so offended. 'Boy next door' is a compliment."

"It's inaccurate. And also? You made it sound like a synonym for _boring_ ," Chris grumbles into the mouth of his beer. 

Zach doesn't remember the exact path from there to here. What started off as a relaxing afternoon in the backyard turned philosophical once the other guests had left. Chris had harped on a comment, one of those throwaway niceties someone had given him regarding his new look. A man's comment, by the way, not that it mattered. Except that it did. 

"Christopher, when you cultivated that facial hair, were you hoping it would make you seem a little older? Wiser? More dangerous? Less likely to appear behind the counter of a midwestern diner in a white half-apron to take my order for a slice of huckleberry pie?" Zach hides his grin with another sip. 

Chris wings an eyebrow at him. "That last one was kind of specific."

A shrug. These types of fantasies can't be helped and Zach isn't about to apologize for them. He's so well-behaved otherwise. "What do you care what Franco thinks, anyway? You don't even—" He snaps his mouth shut. They've been around this track before, and the way Chris is glaring daggers into the grass and avoiding eye contact, it seems it's still a sore subject. But the sun is making Zach sleepy and it's hard to bite back the rush of words. "What, you seriously— Franco!?" 

"Oh, clearly not." All caustic even with the lazy roll of his mouth as they shape his lines. "Not I, not ever. It's an impossibility, as you have pointed out in the past, due to the fact—"

"Are you still mad about—?"

"—that bisexual men are not real."

"I didn't say that. Oh my god, am I not allowed to blurt out something in surprise?" 

"See, this is why I never tell anyone. You said," Chris hitches his voice into a high, whiny register, a pretty unflattering yet accurate impersonation of Zach in a panic, "'A-are you _sure_ , though? I mean, the only guy I knew who called himself bi was just trying to tiptoe out of the closet for real,' which, I'd like to point out, is a really shitty thing to say—"

"Which I apologized for!"

"—when someone is trying to confess something deeply fucking personal to someone they're hoping will understand!" 

The shouting cuts out in unison and they stare at each other across the yellowing patch of backyard crabgrass. Zach crinkles the sides of his beer can to make a little noise to fill the space. 

Finally he musters up another kind of apology. "Look, if you like Franco—"

Chris covers his face with his palm and groans into it. Swiping it down his chin and his newly minted beard, he growls, "I don't like him. It's fine."

"Okay." They sit and drink in silence for another minute. A bird chirps on the wire overhead, then flies away. "So wait," Zach says, because he's never learned to leave well enough alone. "Why were you so pissed off at the head-patting, then? He just thought you were cute." 

Chris snorts, twirls his beer can into another position on his thigh. Zach's not sure, but it looks like he's making a daisy chain with the wet circles. "He thought I was looking for a daddy to play with," he says. 

Zach squints again, this time in bewilderment. "But, wait. What?"

"He said so. Took me aside behind the grill while you were playing with the dog." Chris gestures to said grill, now cooling to embers in the shade of a jacaranda tree. "Asked me if I was into being held down."

"Oh my god." Zach blinks. This isn't the first time one of his guests has crossed a line, but it still feels like 25% his fault. "I'm so sorry, I—"

"It's not a big deal. I politely declined. It's just annoying to be finally single and get nothing but invitations to the wrong kind of party." Chris smiles, crinkle-eyed and golden, and Zach relaxes.

"Yeah, I know the feeling." He toys with the tab on his can and thinks about the willowy boys in Berlin. "Still, I'm kind of surprised he picked up on your vibe. Weird that he jumped from that to 'must be into light BDSM and roleplay.'" Zach laughs.

Chris doesn't. 

Zach sobers slowly. "Right? Isn't that weird?"

A shrug, this one a full-body sigh. "Maybe not, if I'm on the other side of the paddle," he says.

Okay, now Zach is certain he's being jerked around. It's just a whole 'nother layer of crazy in the bean dip that is his friend's inner workings. "No way," he says. "You don't have it in you."

Eyebrows take flight again. "I'm offended. What makes you think I can't handle a more—" He gestures vaguely. "—dominant role?"

Zach cannot stop the patronizing look from creeping over his features. It's more pitying than disbelieving, though. He says nothing. 

"What?" Chris cries, and it's such a sad whine that Zach can't help but laugh. 

"It's just that you—" Zach looks at him, his friend with the blue-blue eyes and the just-growing-in salt and pepper beard and that adorable crushed look. "I can't even imagine you—you know." He mimes cracking a whip in the air. Makes a 'psssssssh' sound between his teeth.

Chris frowns down at the daisy chain on his jeans. It occurs to Zach, belatedly, that this might be very similar to the time he implied Chris couldn't be queer because it just hadn't computed right away in Zach's own brain. 

"Hey, sorry. I just meant— You're such a sweetheart, man. It's hard to square that with you spanking some guy's ass." 

If the conflicting grimaces on Chris's face are any indication, he's torn between irritation and smugness at Zach's compliment. "Well, maybe I have many layers," he finally says. "Maybe when you spend all day being told what to do—stand here, say this, sign here, wear this—maybe, when you don't spend all your time pretending to be dark and mysterious," he throws a pointed look in Zach's direction, "you start to like the idea of being in charge of someone else for a change."

"I'll believe it when I see it," Zach murmurs, drinking deeply. He finishes the can, his head tipped all the way back, and when he snaps back with a satisfied 'ahhhhh' Chris is staring at him. More accurately, staring at his throat. Zach realizes his words were a little too boundary-skirting, a little too flirtatious. He's been trying, doubly so since Chris had confided in him; he doesn't want this to get weird. It's too important to let it get weird. 

Chris is still staring. "Okay," is all he says.

But then the moment's gone and Chris makes a three-point throw from his chair: beer can into the recycling bin by the fence. And things are back to the way they had been at the beginning of the lazy afternoon.

In New York he's sharply dressed, razor-keen like a man on a mission. "This time," he says, "there are stakes."

Zach doesn't know what the hell he's talking about so he adjusts the lay of Chris's tie and hums noncommittally. 

"I'm serious," Chris insists. "The problem last time was lack of payoff. I couldn't concentrate on winning because I was bored. I had no motivation. This time—"

"Oh god, the vocabulary game again?" Zach lights up at the thought. "I thought you hated that." He loved, loved, _loved_ besting Chris in their joint interviews. The final score was something like 33 to 17, with Zach using almost half of their assigned words (although Chris had argued at least 8 of those points were ineligible due to misuse; Chris was a sore loser). 

" _This_ time," he says again, slowly and deliberately, "the winner gets to top."

Zach freezes, his fingers still at the knot of Chris's tie. "Top," he repeats.

"Top." Chris nods. "A blanket term meaning control, say-so in the directing of amourous events, and in no way implying whose whatever goes where." 

The patronizing/pitying look is back, Zach knows it but can't stop it, even when Chris huffs in indignation. "Christopher—" he begins.

"Oh, don't give me that look."

"—I applaud your creativity but the fact of the matter is—"

"Would you stop trying to cut me off at the pass every time I bring this up?"

"—you would not survive an hour in bed with me, not to mention—"

"If you were honestly not interested that's one thing, but don't stand there and act like—"

"—we are friends and colleagues and professionals who should not, under any circumstances—"

"—you're doing me a favor by not letting me have what we both obviously want—"

"—do something we'll both regret!"

"—you fucking martyr!" 

Zach has backed up several steps in the course of their argument, now nearly in the foyer of the hotel room. Chris's face is pinked with anger and his hands are clenched into fists at his sides. He swallows once, and Zach knows he's feeling shitty about the martyr crack. It hurts, he can't lie about that, can't cover up the twitch of betrayal on his face. They stare at each other. Horns honk distantly many stories below.

"Fine," Zach says evenly. "Let's play the game. Winner gets control." He turns and fishes the hotel fob out of the little decorative bowl, pockets the room key. "Since you so obviously crave what you don't have." His voice is clipped, meant for payback. 

"Hey. Come on." A hand, dry and strong on his wrist, holding him in place. "The game's supposed to be fun. I don't want us treating each other like shit."

Zach's gaze falls to Chris's mouth, then lower to his hand. "I don't want that either."

"Would you regret it that much? Because I wouldn't," Chris says. "I really wouldn't, I—"

They're so close, it takes no effort at all for Zach to lean in, thread his fingers in the thick hair at the back of Chris's head, and kiss him. He's been imagining this kiss, their first, for a long time: daydreams of slow, sensual tongue-lapping in a curtained first class cabin; fleeting images of quick, dirty, surprise sucks to Chris's lower lip behind a trailer in a deserted lot; all the disparate variations in between. The reality is simpler. His mouth meets Chris's, then leaves it. 

Chris chases, tries to get him back, but Zach just leans out of reach and smiles. "Let's play the game," he says, softer.

"Yeah?" Chris's smile blinds by slow degrees. He hides it in the crook of Zach's neck, not biting, not kissing, just pressing his lips to the curve of his throat. Zach's breath hitches; Chris's beard tickles, and his cologne is so sharp this close, and he's warm and feels like something solid and real. 

"Yeah." He leans in for another kiss, but Chris dodges this time.

His fingers squeeze Zach's wrist then drop it. "No gun-jumping," he says with a wag of a finger. "The tension's half the fun."

"Fun. Right," Zach repeats with a smile. He curves an arm around Chris's waist and guides him to the door. "The other half of the fun will be seeing you on your knees at the end of this press tour."

"Don't count those chickens just yet, Zachary," he says.

Karl, a disinterested third party, chooses the words from a tenth grade study guide website. Chris saves the list as a note on his phone, and Zach can see him consulting it in cabs and bars and hotel rooms for days afterward. Zach memorizes the entire list in a weekend. He can't help being gifted in certain useful ways.

In London, Chris is jet-lagged but still giving it his all. Jejune. Palliative. Gregarious. They manage to grab a quick lunch together at an outdoor cafe, and Chris scratches his beard and works a crossword puzzle with him. In Moscow, he is crisp and charming again, rallying for another round. Vernacular. Feasible. Girth. Qualms. Zach is particularly impressed with his qualms. They commiserate (number 45 on the list, point: Zach) over overpriced scotch. 

In Sydney, he is tired and hungry and red with embarrassment and suppressed laughter. Tenacious. Redolent. Cacophony. Laconic. Their down-under handler, a short and shrewd woman who seems to be more sympathetic than most, drives them to a beach that isn't too crowded and tells them no one should bother them as long as they wear their sunglasses and hats. Chris stands ankle-deep in the surf, hatless and sans-sunglasses. He closes his eyes and tips his face up to the sun. Zach watches and considers.

In Tokyo, the neon lights cannot touch his eyes. Zach is leading by a healthy margin but it doesn't feel like he's winning. 

Requisite. Axiom. Enumerate. 

Malcontent. 

In New York (again), he is petulant (number 26, point: Chris). The tour is over, officially and forever. There isn't a major city in the world that hasn't had a chance to see them running around on a starship for a second time. The final score is fifty-two to forty-nine, Zach's favor. They haven't mentioned the game since—well, since it started. The game had been played in silence, mostly. Annoyed glares or shakes of the head in joint interviews, one or two bursts of outright laughter (especially when Zach played fast and loose with the definitions); absolutely no more talk of what the outcome of the game might be, its inevitable conclusion. Too many witnesses around to speak of something so private. Zach thinks about the last thing he'd said about it, how he'd have Chris on his knees. 

Knees aren't as attractive a proposition as Zach once thought.

"Anyone can just blurt out a word that doesn't even fit the context," Chris (the sorest loser) says as they walk up Christopher Street, a juxtaposition (number 8, point: Zach) that never ceases to amuse Zach in a childish, simple way. Chris is done with his on-location reshoots, and Zach wants to celebrate. They stop in at the brightly lit ice cream shop, where the guys behind the counter don't make a big deal over him. Chris is wary of the blase attitude, which you never find in LA. He whispers to Zach as they consider the menu above the counter, "You're not worried about this?" 

The ice cream shop is famously owned by gay businessmen, is staffed by obviously gay workers, and has 'gay' right there in the name; it's safe to assume there will be rumors—not unfounded rumors, but early rumors—about the two of them if they're papped together. Zach just rolls his eyes.

"No one cares. Now get your damn milkshake." 

"Yes, sir," Chris mutters. He lets Zach pay for it. Already letting him have control, in a way. A sore loser, but damn if he doesn't keep his promises. And it might be Zach's imagination, but Chris seems pleased—however slightly—at the idea that Zach would be fine with rumors. 

In Zach's apartment, Chris avoids the subject of the bet as best he can, thumbing through Zach's bookshelf, chattering on about the play Zach's in rehearsals for, sucking the nonexistent last dregs from his milkshake. 

Zach gently takes the empty cup from his fingers and drops it into the trash can. He raises an eyebrow but says nothing. Chris sighs like he's about to be sent on a death march, glancing around the apartment like he's looking for an exit.

"Okay, all right, you win. How do you want to—?" He scratches the back of his neck. The beard is gone now, a sacrifice to the reshoots, and he looks younger, more vulnerable. "Unless you don't want to. It was a stupid bet; you probably really didn't—just to humor me or whatever—"

There are hats and light jackets to hang up—this August has been strangely chilly—and Zach plucks the slouchy beanie from Chris's head as he passes by. "Yes, Christopher, I made the effort to squeeze dozens of ridiculous words into interviews, looking like a fool at times, because I didn't care about our bet. You're so spot-on, it hurts."

Chris's face scrunches into a frown. He licks his lower lip, a sure sign of nerves. "Come on, don't be a sarcastic jerk."

"I thought _I_ won the right to give the orders," he replies smoothly. Chris deflates even more. Oh, but it's too delicious. Zach can't help but prolong the tension until the very last moment. That, and he's curious about how Chris will handle this.

He hangs up Chris's hat and his own cardigan in the foyer and turns around to find his answer. Chris is kneeling on the parquet floor of the living room, head bowed, wrists actually fucking crossed behind his back. 

"Oh," Zach says. 

"You're right. We made a deal." Chris shifts a little, his shoulders rolled into tense points. Then he takes a deep breath, tips his head up, opens his eyes, and it's a whole new person kneeling on Zach's floor. Soft and open and silently begging. Zach is not offended by the playacting; he's touched by it. Sex, he's found, is mostly a performance anyway. That doesn't make it meaningless. Actually, it means a lot that Chris is willing to play this part, thinking it's what Zach wants. It means he understands the theatrics of what they're about to do. Embraces them, for Zach.

"Oh, Christopher." He toes off his loafers in the foyer, pads over to him on bare feet. Curls two fingers under his chin and lifts it further. This is the line they weren't ever going to cross, he thinks. That one kiss could've been waved away as a shared psychosis, an inappropriate show of jubilation following a job well done. There had been moments during the tour when Zach thought they'd break their self-imposed rule—an almost-kiss to a sleepy forehead on an airplane, a too-familiar stroke of a hand in the backseat of a town car—but they didn't. Well, if it's a mistake, it will be a memorable one. "Stand up," he says.

Chris stands fluidly, still in his role as evidenced by his slouch, giving Zach another extra inch of height over him. Zach's hand flutters fondly at his jaw. He tamps down on the excitement crawling in his belly.

"I won," Zach says, "which means I get to choose, right? I decide what happens and how. I'm in control."

Chris nods. His head drops a little, seeking more contact with Zach's palm. Zach lets him rub his cheek there. Their skin is fever-heated. 

"Then I choose," he strokes his jaw, down his neck, lingering at the base of Chris's throat, "to let you take control."

He feels the leap in Chris's pulse. Those blue fucking eyes fly wide open, character broken. "Really?"

Zach grins. It's like watching a kid in a candy store. "Yeah, really."

"But why?" A concerned pall falls over those eyes. "You were so _into_ it, winning the game. I thought for sure— I mean, come on! Why let me win now?"

"Because it pleases me," Zach says in a '40s stage show voice, all growl and goof. When Chris rolls his eyes, he tries again. "Because maybe what you said—about wanting something different for a change—struck a chord." He gives the hair at the back of Chris's head a quick tug, then drops his hand. "So go ahead. Show me this dominant side that I can't picture at all no matter how hard I—"

A hand, square and warm and firm, covers his mouth. "You talk too much," Chris says, "and I have just the thing for that." His eyes are dancing now, his face falling into dangerous and determined angles. A new script, a quick adaptation. Zach smiles under Chris's fingers. He gets a never-before-seen kind of smirk (mischief and promise) in return. 

The bedroom isn't far, luckily. It isn't easy to walk backwards, both his wrists gathered behind his back in one of Chris's hands while the other stays over his mouth. His spine curves back into a less-than-graceful shape, and his steps coincide jerkily with Chris's. 

The back of his knees hit the edge of the low platform bed, and he allows Chris to push him down into the crisply made bedclothes. The hand is removed, and Zach is about to ask just what this evening will entail, but Chris presses a single finger to his lips. 

"If you don't like something I'm doing to you, give me this sign. Because you won't be able to speak." He holds up two fingers in demonstration and Zach is _not_ going to be a huge nerd and tell him what that reminds him of, he's _not_. 

Instead he just nods silently, his lips dragging along the length of that single finger. Chris smiles, then he's gone, his weight leaving the bed with a loud creak. Zach turns his head and sees him flinging open his closet door. A yoga mat tips out onto the rug, but Chris ignores it in favor of riffling through the collection of scarves on the door's coat hooks. 

"If you had told me earlier that you wanted to switch, I could have planned this out better," he says quietly, almost to himself. "But of course you, Mr. Dark & Mysterious, couldn't do that, could you?" He glances in Zach's direction, so Zach gives a half-shrug in response. Chris smirks again and draws the lengths of a few scarves through his fingers as if testing their strength. "I'll just have to improvise. Don't worry, I'll try not to destroy the expensive ones." 

Zach raises his eyebrows in question, but Chris doesn't answer, just tosses the light blue summer scarf over his shoulder and frees the white and gray check one from the tangle on the hooks. He takes the check in his hand, pulls it out thin and long, then ties a fat knot in its center. 

"No tag on this one. Chinatown?" He smiles at Zach's annoyed glare. "Hope it doesn't have any sentimental value." 

"Not yet," Zach says before he can stop himself. 

"Oh, I'm going to enjoy this." Chris clambers up behind Zach on the bed, whips the scarf around Zach's head, shoving the knot between his teeth. Zach fights it; he doesn't know any different. He jerks in Chris's arms, tries to spit out the gag, grunts and screeches into it until he can feel his saliva soaking the fabric between his lips. Chris pulls the gag tight and knots it at the back of his head. 

"Shhh," he says. Zach's pulse jolts at the sound. He's back in Australia, getting on Chris's last nerve, getting shushed in the middle of an interview where he got too rowdy. Same curt, demanding _shhh_. At the time, Zach had felt kind of pissed at being treated like a kid in a library, but now there's something attractively sinister about it. He goes lax by slow degrees, and Chris's grip on his upper arms softens as he does. 

"There you go. I've got you." The second scarf gets looped around Zach's wrists, binding his hands behind his back, crushed between Chris's body and his own. He whines—just a little—teeth digging into his gag. He prods two fingers into Chris's hipbone, and Chris rearranges him so his wrist bones aren't grinding together anymore. He lets out a relieved sigh and lets his fingers curl into loose fists again.

He can feel Chris's body heat behind him, his heart thumping against his back, his breath on his nape, a metric ton of Chris-ness enveloping him. It's even more disorienting not being able to see him; Zach is staring at the back of his bedroom door. He can't see what he's doing or how his eyes look and it's—

Yeah. It's disconcerting, not being the one in the driver's seat.

Chris's hands come into view at last. They trail down his arms, along his flanks, tripping lightly across the folds of his plaid shirt, teasing at the hem. He tugs at the shirt's tails. They slip from the waistband of Zach's jeans and lay there in his lap. If it were up to Zach, he'd have stripped by now. He likes wriggle out of clothing over with as fast as possible. But it's not up to him, and Chris seems to want to take his time.

Since complete acquiescence (number 42, point: Zach) is not something he has ever mastered, he tries to involve himself in the proceedings as best he can while all trussed up. His bound hands scrabble behind his back, fingers digging into the cotton of Chris's shirt, seeking the heat of his skin. Chris clicks his tongue—like a schoolmarm or something—and draws his arms around Zach's chest, squeezing just this side of too tightly. One forearm drifts upwards, settles on Zach's Adam's apple, and just presses there. Zach breathes rabbit-rapid through his nostrils, the fabric in his mouth too thick to give him the air he needs. Okay, okay, he wants to say, I get it. You're dangerous. I'll never be fooled again. 

But he can't speak and he can't move when Chris leans closer, lips brushing the ridge of his ear to murmur, "Be still." 

Zach doesn't know what he'd expected from Chris Pine's Big Gay Night of Topping, but this wasn't it. It's too—he settles back more firmly against Chris, trying to breathe deep instead of vibrating out of his skin—esoteric. Not that he'd figured Chris for a cliched whips-and-chains sort but he'd thought some definable, knowable kink would make an appearance: spanking or face-fucking or something, anything Zach had encountered before. 

But Zach doesn't know a word for being held motionless and rendered silent, for being forced quiet and pliable under Chris's hands, which are roving along his torso again. It makes Zach a little sleepy, being wordlessly—petted, stroked?—like this. His head dips, his chin nearly to his chest, his legs sprawling out in a V in front of him. Chris's laugh rumbles behind Zach's lungs. He rests the point of his own chin on the crown of Zach's head. 

"You're doing good," he says into Zach's hair. Zach bites back the instinctive response that he's not doing anything. It hits him then that whatever is happening is almost yogic: holding a position, controlling his breathing, slipping into a headspace where things feel kind of dreamlike and slow. He almost giggles into his gag because Chris is the last person he would expect to find in a Vinyasa class. Maybe Chris is thinking the same thing, because he smiles, teeth hard against Zach's shoulder.

"I'm going to take off your clothes and you're not going to struggle." 

Zach makes a little grunt of assent and Chris's finger drop to the buttons of his shirt. He starts at the top and works his way down, little flicks of his fingernails popping the buttons through the buttonholes, then parting the panes of the shirt before moving on to the next. When he's done, he peels the shirt away from Zach's body and lets it hang off his shoulders. There's a little sigh in Zach's ear, the first sign that Chris is at all aroused by what they're doing. Chris's lips are at his neck, speaking into his skin: "I'm going to touch you and you're not going to fight me."

Zach wonders if this is one of those kinky things where Chris means the opposite of what he say, that maybe he really does want to see Zach fight back. But he'd sighed so prettily when Zach obeyed his earlier command, so Zach stays stockstill as directed. Chris's finger dance up and down the meridians of his body. Sternum, ribs, nipples. The mat of hair that covers his chest and trails down his stomach. Chris's sweat is sharp in his nose. The scarf is sodden between his teeth and tastes like straw. He'd give anything in that moment to have Chris's skin under his tongue instead. 

He's reminded, vaguely, of spaghettification, the process by which a person would die when nearing a black hole. The theory being that your body would break in half and in half and in half again and again until you were just a long string of atoms. That's what Chris is doing. Using gravity to tear him into smaller and smaller pieces until he's falling into the inexorable black. All in a neat row, like the Pied Piper story. 

The sounds he's making are muffled into the gag, but they must be getting louder or more frantic because Chris hooks his chin over Zach's shoulder and says, "Breathe," with the same kind of inflection a doctor or personal trainer might use. Zach's eyes are clenched shut and he doesn't even realize it until Chris's fingertips pass over his eyelids, a gentle pressure nudging them open again. They look down the mountainside of Zach's body together. His dick is so hard in his jeans, the outline is crystal clear. 

Chris laughs, low and dark. He reaches down, pulls open the button fly, pushes the jeans down Zach's hips. It's not easy in this position; Zach is lucky he's so flexible. He ends up with his head tucked almost to his knees while Chris drapes over his back, working the jeans lower until they're stuck around Zach's calves. He's hobbled like this. Those jeans are tight. 

"I'm going to arrange you the way I want you," Chris says in his ear, and Zach's eyes slip shut again. His arms and legs are going all pins-and-needles. Chris grabs his hips and turns him until he's facedown on the duvet, bound hands flexing the sparks of pain away. He turns his head to the side and lets out a nasally sigh as his limbs slowly come back to life. 

Chris grabs a couple pillows from the headboard and coaxes Zach to cant his hips upward. He slides the pillows under him so his ass is in the air. 

It dawns on Zach that maybe he should have communicated his own preferences before being gagged. He doesn't mind bottoming but it's been a while—a long, long while—and he hopes Chris knows what he's doing. When Chris begins to peel his sweat-soaked boxer briefs down his thighs, Zach can't help but tense all over, his spine as rigid as his cock where it pushes into his pillows.

Chris curves himself over Zach again, using that goddamn physicality to make himself seem huge, all-encompassing. His muscles are compact and his skin is so warm. He places a hand on the back of Zach's neck and holds him there against the mattress. "I'm going to ask you not to be scared," he says. His voice is a narrator's, warm but distant. "Even though you don't know what's coming, you know that it's coming from me. So don't be scared."

Zach wants to say _I'm not scared_ into his gag, but it's hard to sound convincing when you're tied up and exposed. And also he has a feeling Chris could smell a lie on him. He's nuzzling into the space behind his ear, at the juncture of his neck, in the space between the wings of his shoulder blades. He's so quiet, even his breathing is soft and subsumed by the noise of the traffic on the street below. His hands work with fluid grace, touching Zach, anchoring his hips into a high angle. There's a brush of lips on the back of his right thigh and then—then Chris is burying his face between his legs, licking at his ass, pulling him apart to taste further. 

Zach jerks on the bed, he can't help it. The sensation is too much. Chris's hands are there, holding him down, but it's impossible to keep still. There's no reprieve; even when he manages to scoot forward an inch, Chris just follows, tongue working him like it's a mission. Zach's shirt is still caught around his wrists, so Chris grabs a fistful of the plaid fabric, wraps it around his hand, and tugs like it's a leash. One inch gained, four more lost, pulled back onto that greedy tongue. 

It takes a moment to realize the sobs are his own, to hear what Chris's name sounds like muffled into his makeshift gag. Chris stops for a second, long enough to nip at the flesh of his thigh. Zach protests the loss with a high whine. His bound arms jerk behind his back as if trying to grab Chris's face to put it back where it was. 

"You got to relax," Chris says, soothing a hand down his flank. "Let it all go. Let me do this for you, okay? You're good, you're doing fine."

Zach forces himself to go boneless, to stop fighting. He's a ragdoll. A mannequin. He's malleable like gold, pulled thin but not breaking. He's a long line of atoms. He let Chris rearrange him, fluff up the pillows as an altar for his leaking cock. His breathing is even and clean as Chris rims him in silence.

It feels playful now that he can concentrate on what Chris is doing to him. In between gulps for air, Chris lets his thumbs massage along his hole, blows cool air across it before flattening his tongue to it again. He slurps along the seam of Zach's balls, laves at them, noses his thighs further apart. Zach feels the scratch of his shirt and the hard shape of his belt buckle against the his legs where Chris is straddling them. He wishes Chris were bare, but maybe that's another control thing. 

Chris's tongue is in him and Chris's hand has wormed its way under him to cradle his leaking cock. His eyes are closed but he can imagine Chris's face, the hunger hunger _hunger_. He thinks about what might happen next, realizes he doesn't care. Chris could do anything to him: press his dick into Zach's slicked-up hole, turn him over and fuck his mouth, come on his cheek and his chin and his gag-parted lips. And knowing that he'd let Chris do anything he wanted at this point, that tips him over. He comes quietly in Chris's hand, soaking the pillowcase under his hips. Chris clamps his free hand on his hipbone to keep him steady and licks him through every shudder and shake. 

The collapse is controlled by Chris, his hands pushing the pillows aside, turning Zach over, lowering Zach onto his back. He's a mess, a panting, sticky, drool-covered mess. He stares up at Chris—who is still fully fucking clothed, what the hell?—and wiggles his shoulders in what he thinks is the international sign for 'wrists free, please.' 

Chris shakes his head, holds up one finger. He's kneeling on the bed next to Zach's prone body, poised for something more. Zach stills and tries to get his breathing under control. His dick gives one last brave dribble into the curve of his stomach, and his gaze goes to it instinctively, then back up to the bulge in Chris's pants. He locks eyes with Chris, telegraphing the question. 

"So eager," Chris says in a steady voice as he unclasps his belt. He lets it dangle loose, unzips his fly and lets that hang open too. He brings his cock out into the air, holds it still as if to let Zach take it in. It's nice and pink; Zach would say so if he could talk. As it is, he can only make a feeble dip of his chin in offering, which Chris smirks at. 

"I can handle myself, thanks." He reaches over, runs his palm between Zach's legs, and gathers the glistening spit and come on his fingers. It's sinful, the way he looks at Zach as he does it. His eyes are heavy with ownership as he slips his fist up and down the length of his cock, mirroring his gaze's path along Zach's sprawled form.

"Look at you." Chris nods to himself. Satisfaction and pride. "I could keep you here for days. Like a pet." A thrill races up Zach's backbone. He knows that would be impossible, but the idea is tempting. His thoughts must show on his face, because Chris groans and uses his free hand to hold his chin, thumb and forefinger guiding him gently. They lock eyes again. When Zach's gaze drifts down, wanting to see Chris's hand working on his cock, Chris presses his chin up another inch. 

Zach doesn't look away, not even when he feels Chris's warm come on his chest and stomach. 

Then Chris is as boneless as Zach, falling into a heap at Zach's side, chest rising and falling like a bellows. Zach stays still until Chris taps his arm and says, "Gimme." He rolls on his side, lets Chris unknot the scarf from his wrists, then removes the gag himself. He's too floaty to figure out how to take it off completely, so he ends up just letting it dangle around his neck. 

Chris huffs derisively at him and unties the gray check scarf himself. It falls to the bedsheet in a damp lump, then rolls against Zach's back as he turns on his side.

"C'mere," Chris says, lifting his arm in invitation. Zach curls into the shelter of Chris's body, his arms sore and breathing still ragged. He remembers belatedly how messy he is and moves to unstick himself, but Chris holds him in place. "It's okay. Dry cleaning's on me." 

Zach laughs, the first human sound he's made in— How long have they been in bed? He lifts his head a little to see the clock over the slope of Chris's shoulder. Holy shit. 

"I lost time," he croaks. Like, over an hour. It was half past when they got back to the apartment and now it's nearly midnight. "What the hell did you do to me?"

Chris grins into the crook of his neck. "Maybe one-tenth of what I've thought of doing." 

It's an honest statement. Maybe too honest. Zach shifts against Chris on the filthy sheets; after being so quiet for so long, he's not sure what he should say. Maybe that's the point, he thinks. Maybe they don't need words anymore. 

Chris spends long minutes stroking the tips of his fingers up and down Zach's back, his eyes closed in contentment. Then he tugs at Zach's hand and helps him up, guides him out of bed, helps him shuck off his stained jeans. They're sharing a shower before he speaks again.

"You can be in charge next time." He's standing behind Zach, pressed up against his back, a new version of how the night began. His hands are methodical as they soap Zach's chest. 

Zach just smiles, though he knows Chris can't see it. 

Chris tries again. "Or we could flip a coin." 

He reaches a hand back, draws Chris forward by his hair, turns his head over his shoulder to kiss him into silence. Chris nips at his shoulder when they break for air, a wordless thank-you. 

They stay there until the water runs cold, and then they sleep: Chris on his back, taking up way more than half of the mattress, Zach on his side, curled to pillow his head on Chris's chest. Chris sleeps in the nude, and it should be weird. This entire thing should be weird. But it's easy to fall asleep this way, with the familiar smell of Chris's cologne and hair product surrounding him and nothing left to say.

**Author's Note:**

> Dudes. Dudes. Dudes. Let's be friends. I am on [tumblr](http://stuffimgoingtohellfor.tumblr.com/) and I mostly reblog pictures of Pine & Quinto that make me frustrated.


End file.
